Spooktacular Halloween Series

Redbrick TV writers carefully select their top spooky, scary and simply unsettling shows for you to make your way through this Halloween

Natalia Carter - Charmed

Charmed is a classic witchy series starring Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan as the Halliwell sisters. It was recently remade, but I’m a purist and can’t in good faith recommend anything other than the original. Charmed was my go-to series when I was younger and it’s still one of the best series I have ever watched. It mixes the domestic family drama with the excitement of demons, magic and warlocks. Each episode offers a new development in their fight to maintain the good of the world. It’s a great watch for a more relaxed Halloween night in. So, if you’re like me and don’t enjoy jumpy horror films, but do enjoy binging a series filled with twists and turns – then buckle up for eight seasons of supernatural delight.

Amrita Manda - Bates Motel

The talented Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore star in the Bates Motel as Norma and Norman Bates in this imagined Psycho prequel. The show follows the mother and son duo as they try to build a new life for themselves, but are weighed down by old secrets from their past. The series brilliantly explores the layers of the mother-son relationship as the audience is invited to explore the psyche of the characters and delve into this twisted world. This psychological thriller will lead you down a dark rabbit hole that will constantly have you holding your breath in suspense.

Aimee Britton - Derren Brown Trick or Treat

Mentalist and Illusionist Derren Brown explored the psychological potentials for the classic Halloween catchphrase in his 2007-8 special series’. Participants blindly chose a ‘trick’ or ‘treat’ card and were dealt a corresponding experience.

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Brown pushed the line between inspirational and cruel, with an elegance rarely so well achieved

Treats showcased Brown’s prowess using psychological experience to boost participants’ skills or self-confidence, whilst dastardly tricks had participants convinced they were ventriloquist dummies, insane, or even experiencing their own death. Brown pushed the line between inspirational and cruel, with an elegance rarely so well achieved. The result is an unsettling masterpiece that makes for compelling viewing for those that don’t like an outright scare.

Hannah Ray - The Walking Dead

Zombies are a staple Halloween fix, and none has done it more successfully than ‘The Walking Dead’. We follow Rick Grimes and his ragtag team of post-apocalypse survivors, as they navigate a world filled not just with the threat of zombies but also other humans. With individuals you will quickly grow to love or hate, each zombie encounter will fill you with dread or anticipation as you wait for the next grisly death. Whilst the storyline may have waned over the last few seasons, there is no doubting that the ample amounts of blood, gore and zombies remain fantastically terrifying.

Jessica Green - The Vampire Diaries

Forget October 31st… Mystic Falls, the fictional town that The Vampire Diaries is set in, is plagued by an onslaught of witches, ghosts, werewolves, doppelgängers, hybrids, and vampires (obviously) all year round. Far from living the simple small-town life, main character Elena Gilbert spends the majority of her time grieving for the loved ones she has lost at the hands of these supernatural beings. Though The Vampire Diaries remains a teen drama at heart (with its main focus lying in which of the dashing Salvatore brothers Elena will choose as her vampire boyfriend), a certain element of horror still suspends itself across the eight seasons as you begin to wonder if any of your beloved characters will actually still be standing by the end.

Niamh Brennan - Black Mirror

Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror will terrify you in ways that will resonate with you long after you have finished watching.

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You won’t be scared of the supernatural any longer, you will be fearing for your own future instead

Whether you worry about the future of Artificial Intelligence, or the increasing ways you can be monitored or judged by society, Black Mirror presents to its audience a not-so-distant future where your worst fears have become reality. If that doesn’t scare you, the twisted depiction of human nature transformed in light of technological advances will. The presentation of capital punishment in ‘White Bear’ and ‘White Christmas’ leave you feeling sympathy for a murderer due to the torture they have to suffer. Once you have binge watched the entirety of Black Mirror this Halloween, you won’t be scared of the supernatural any longer, you will be fearing for your own future instead.